Institut Steinsaltz (Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications)

Among the great editorial enterprises of contemporary Judaism, few have had a comparable reach to that of the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, commonly referred to as the Steinsaltz Institute, after the name of its founder. Conceived as the instrument of a project of boundless ambition — to make the Babylonian Talmud accessible to every Jewish reader, scholar or layperson —, this institute embodies one of the most enduring aspirations of modern Jewish thought: to reconcile a textual heritage of formidable complexity with a population a growing portion of which had lost the key to it.

The institution was born of personal conviction as much as of cultural diagnosis. Its founder, Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, considered that ignorance of the Talmud constituted a form of collective amnesia threatening the very continuity of the Jewish people. His work was animated by the desire to educate large numbers of Jews about their heritage, and "Let my people know" was his favorite motto. It is around this programmatic formula that the history of the Institute unfolds: not merely a publishing house, but a civilizational mission endowed with an intellectual infrastructure.

This Great Book traces the history of this institution, from its founding in 1965 to the worldwide dissemination of its editions of the Talmud in modern Hebrew, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. It endeavors, insofar as the available sources permit, to distinguish what belongs to the established archive, to transmitted tradition, and to their intersection.

The Institute cannot be understood independently of the singular figure of its creator. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz was born on July 11, 1937, in Jerusalem, then in Mandatory Palestine, and died there on August 7, 2020, at the age of 83. His trajectory is all the more remarkable in that he did not come from a traditionalist background. Born in Jerusalem in 1937 to secular parents, Steinsaltz studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the Hebrew University, in addition to his rabbinical studies.

This dual formation, scientific and religious, partly explains the methodical rigor he would later apply to his editorial work. Before devoting himself to the study of texts, he committed himself to education: after obtaining his degree, he founded several experimental schools and became, at the age of 23, the youngest school principal in Israel. According to other sources, this appointment would have occurred at the age of 24, a minor discrepancy that does not alter the portrait of a precocious and enterprising mind [Jewish Virtual Library].

The decision that would define his life crystallized in the mid-1960s. In 1965, Rabbi Steinsaltz embarked on a lifelong mission: to make the Talmud accessible to all. It is in this context that he created the institution destined to carry this endeavor forward. In 1965, Steinsaltz founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and undertook his monumental translation and commentary of the Talmud into modern Hebrew. The Institute and the Talmudic project are thus rigorously contemporaneous: in 1965, Steinsaltz founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, the same year he began his translation of the Talmud.

The founding of the Institut in 1965 responds to a precise analysis of the contemporary Jewish condition. The Talmud, a sprawling compilation of legal and exegetical debates written in Aramaic and Hebrew, remained, for the vast majority of Jews in the modern era, a closed book. Its laconic style, absence of punctuation, use of technical vocabulary, and the interweaving of arguments made access nearly impossible without intensive yeshiva training.

Steinsaltz articulated this diagnosis in striking terms. "The Talmud is the central pillar of Jewish knowledge, important for the overall understanding of what Judaism is," he declared, but "it is a book that Jews cannot understand. This is a dangerous situation, like a collective amnesia." The Institut's response was therefore to lower the barriers to entry without distorting the text. He stated that he had attempted to create pathways through which people could enter the Talmud without encountering insurmountable obstacles.

The Institut's editorial innovation lies in the very design of the page. To the original Aramaic text, the Institut adds a translation and a commentary apparatus conceived to guide the reader step by step. The Steinsaltz editions of the Talmud include a translation from the original Aramaic as well as an exhaustive commentary. This arrangement broke with the classical Vilna layout — venerated yet hermetic — by proposing a new pedagogical architecture. The Institut thus became the laboratory of a mediation between the ancient letter and the modern reader, faithful to the motto "Let my people know."

The Institute's talmudic project unfolded over the span of an entire lifetime. Where other editorial undertakings might have mobilized large teams across generations, the Talmud Steinsaltz bears the mark of a singular effort, sustained over nearly half a century. It took 45 years, yet he completed all 63 volumes of the work. This completion constitutes a major milestone in the intellectual Jewish history of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The date of this achievement is precisely documented. Steinsaltz completed his Hebrew edition of the entirety of the Babylonian Talmud in November 2010, at which point Koren Publishers Jerusalem became the publisher of all his works, including the Talmud. This editorial transition marks a new stage: the Institute, which had carried the initial production, now joined forces with a leading publishing house to ensure the dissemination and lasting preservation of the entire corpus.

The completion of 2010 was perceived as an event reaching beyond the strictly scholarly realm. It represented the fulfillment of the diagnosis put forward in 1965: the "collective amnesia" that Steinsaltz had feared found its antidote in a Talmud now integrally accessible. At the moment of this achievement, the founder reaffirmed the significance of his enterprise to the press, emphasizing that the Talmud remained "the central pillar of Jewish knowledge" and that its closure constituted a peril for transmission. The Institute had thus transformed an individual mission into a collective heritage.

The Institute's ambition was not limited to modern Hebrew. The universalist vocation of the project — reaching as many Jews as possible, whatever their language — required a translation effort of considerable scale. In 1965, it founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and began its monumental work on the Talmud, comprising translation into Hebrew, English, Russian, and various other languages.

The results of this effort at dissemination are attested in a convergent manner by the sources. The work was also translated into English, French, Russian, and Spanish. This linguistic range reflects the geography of the diasporas the Institute sought to serve: the English-speaking communities of North America and the wider world, the French-speaking Jews of Europe and North Africa, the Spanish-speaking communities, and Russian-speaking Jews, whose access to sacred texts had long been impeded by the Soviet regime.

The English edition of the Steinsaltz Talmud went through several phases of publication and editorial collaboration. Following the partnership with Koren Publishers Jerusalem formed in 2010, the work took the form of the Koren Noé Talmud. The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, was published under a CC BY-NC license by Koren Publishers. This edition made available the full body of the master's translations: the William Davidson Talmud comprises the complete modern Hebrew and English translations of the Talmud produced by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

The history of the Institute reaches a decisive turning point with the advent of the digital age. The commitment to accessibility that had presided over its founding found in information technology a new horizon of application: not only lowering intellectual barriers, but also eliminating economic and material barriers to access to the text.

This transition toward a logic of open access is embodied in the agreement concluded around the William Davidson Talmud, named after the benefactor who funded its dissemination. Thanks to the generous support of the William Davidson Foundation, these translations are now available under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, making them free to use and reuse — including beyond the Sefaria platform. The work of the Institute, once confined to printed volumes, thus became a digital common heritage.

The actors of this transformation form a coalition revealing of the place now occupied by the Steinsaltz legacy. The partners in the operation included the William Davidson Foundation, Matthew Miller and Koren Publishers, as well as Rabbi Menachem Even-Israel and Milta, who helped bring this unprecedented intellectual property agreement to fruition. This operation inscribes the work of the Institute in the long term and in the culture of open access. Conceived as a collective heritage belonging to all, Jewish texts were made available to everyone thanks to the support of the William Davidson Foundation, with Steinsaltz's translations and his interpolated textual explanations becoming free to use and reuse, even beyond Sefaria.

Thus, more than half a century after its founding, the Institute accomplished, by other means, the same mission: to cross the barriers between the people and their book.

The work of the Institute and its founder has been abundantly honored, which testifies to the institutional recognition of a project that nonetheless grew from an individual initiative. Steinsaltz received numerous distinctions, including the Israel Prize for Jewish studies in 1988, the President and Prime Minister's Prize in memory of Zalman Shazar in 2002, the first Israeli Presidential Medal of Distinction in 2012, and the National Jewish Book Award in 2012. He was also, according to sources, a laureate of the Yakir Yerushalayim prize in 2017 [Open Siddur Project].

The stature acquired by the founder extended well beyond the boundaries of the Jewish scholarly world. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz was hailed by Time magazine as a "once-in-a-millennium scholar." This media consecration, which belongs to public Memory as much as to academic judgment, illustrates the way in which the archive of distinctions and the tradition of praise converge around the figure of the founder.

The continuity of the Institute following the death of Steinsaltz in 2020 rests in part on the familial and institutional transmission of his legacy. The presence of his son, Rabbi Menachem Even-Israel, among the architects of the agreement on the William Davidson Talmud, attests to an active succession in the stewardship of his work. Steinsaltz's affiliation with the Habad movement, attested by sources, further situates the Institute within a broader spiritual network, in which the dissemination of Jewish knowledge carries an openly assumed missionary dimension [Wikipedia, Adin Steinsaltz].

The history of the Israeli Institute for Talmudic Publications is largely inseparable from that of one man and one idea. Founded in 1965, the Institute served as the vehicle for a singular conviction: that the inaccessibility of the Talmud represented, for the Jewish people, an existential peril to which only patient work of translation and commentary could respond. From the first printed page to the open-access digital edition, the Institute has steadfastly pursued its founder's motto, "Let my people know."

The achievement, as attested by authoritative sources, is considerable: a complete translation of the Babylonian Talmud into modern Hebrew, completed in 2010 after forty-five years of labor, extended through English, French, Russian, and Spanish versions, then freed from commercial constraints through its release under an open license. The Institute thus transformed a text long regarded as impenetrable into a shared heritage, accessible in libraries and on screens throughout the world.

Yet, at the close of this journey, there remains a dimension of Memory that eludes the archive: the true spiritual and pedagogical reach of this undertaking across generations of readers. Where History documents dates, volumes, and distinctions, it is the living tradition of study that will measure, over the long term, its genuine accomplishment.